Contrary to pop culture, you really can’t do anything you want.
I want to fly. Not going to happen.
I want to dunk a basketball. Very doubtful.
I want to win the Boston Marathon. Qualifying for and finishing would be possible with a lot of work. Winning the whole thing at my age? I feel pretty confident in saying it’s impossible.
For a lot of us, just reading that last sentence makes us bristle. What about faith? What about Jesus telling us that nothing would be impossible to the ones who believe? He really said that!
He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20 NIV, emphasis mine)
I think that we interpret His bold statement incorrectly when we see it as a promise that there are no limits to what we can do. Jesus wasn’t promising a limitless life, but a life that isn’t less because of limits. He spoke those words to men who would later be martyred for following Him. Men who had more than a mustard seed of faith in Him, and who probably wanted to see the mountains of torture, prison, and death moved.
Jesus doesn't promise a limitless life, but a life that isn’t less because of limits. Click To TweetAnd yet, the promise of Jesus was that even those hard places that seemed to impose limits on them couldn’t stop the Kingdom that was growing in and through them.
I want to challenge you to think about your circumstances differently. Sometimes thinking outside the box — dreaming as if we had no limits — only leads us to frustration when we continually bump up against the limits of what we can do. Need an example? Imagine me after an afternoon of endlessly trying to dunk a basketball! I’d end up tired, sore, bloody, frustrated, sick of basketball, and feeling like a failure.
But what if I thought inside the box instead? What if I determined to be the best basketball player I could be, within the limits of being older and only able to jump about 3 millimeters off the ground? Those limits could push me to become the best shooter, passer, and defender possible because I would stop wasting my efforts on what would never happen and start putting my efforts into what could.
Instead of fighting the impossibilities, I’d be feeding the possibilities.
That’s what happens when we invite Jesus and His “nothing is impossible” power into our boxes. Thinking inside the box leads to a life that the box will no longer contain.
One final note, and then I’m done. Recently, The B99 was able to hear Katherine Wolf speak at a women’s conference. I won’t go into Katherine’s story, but due to circumstances beyond her control, she’s lived the majority of her life in a wheelchair. But when Wendy talked about Katherine’s message, it was obvious that everyone at that conference saw the overwhelming power of God through her more than they saw the wheelchair. The power of God in Katherine Wolf met her in her box and outgrew her box. Again, the goal isn’t to live a limitless life, but rather to live a life that isn’t less because of limits.
Today, let’s think inside the box, and show the world a power that is not limited by the things that limit us.
